


Tidal

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:18:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore





	1. Surge

"Mrs. Crawley, if I may ask, why exactly do you do this?" Elsie clutches her handbag a little closer, blinks a few times. It's probably not appropriate to ask Isobel these kinds of questions, it's probably not her place to question the motives of one of them from upstairs ( _and isn't she, isn't she one of them, Elsie always thought so but now she isn't sure_ ), but she wants to know. Wants to know what it's all for, all the work with the prostitutes, all the censure the other woman receives for her social justice work. She has no need to do it, she could tend flowers, head charities, take up watercolours.  _She couldn't, no_ , Elsie thinks. Not this woman, this woman isn't the type to sit dabbling at this and that, distracting herself while others dance attendance. But to work with women of the street, that takes a certain nonchalance, a certain  _not caring_ that Elsie admires, has never quite dared to completely cross that line herself. She helps those she can help, she has a soft spot for those in trouble, but she knows too well the price a woman pays when she doesn't know her place in this world.

Isobel tilts her head, studies Elsie's honest, interested face, and sees nothing accusatory there, sees nothing shocked or condemning there, only a wanting. A wanting to know, a wanting to understand. She relaxes, then, considers the question carefully. Why does she do it? To help them, of course, to help those lost girls who have nothing, to help them remember they have worth and that someone cares about what happens to them. And, she has to admit, it's a way of finding some kind of worth for herself. It's a way of not hating herself when she gets up every morning and looks around at all this suffocating splendor, all of this choking excess. She has always been a woman who believes in worthiness, in proving that you have something to give to this world besides your endless greedy sucking at the teat. How does she explain that to this woman, though, this woman who works endlessly in a house she'll never own, mothers girls that she never birthed. "I suppose because it needs to be done, Mrs. Hughes. I suppose it's not unlike yourself and your maids -- someone has to see that the job gets done. I hadn't thought about it, honestly, but I suppose that's all it is. It's just a job that needs done, and I need to always be doing a job. So that works out, doesn't it?" She smiles at Elsie, wishes she wouldn't be so stiff, so locked away, wishes she wouldn't feel the need for the deferential  _Mrs. Crawley_ , the rigid posture of a servant in the presence of a superior.

"Mrs. Hughes, would you like to stay for breakfast with me? I daresay they can get on without you for a half-hour or so." It's a sudden question, and Isobel isn't even sure what made her ask, but she quite likes the idea. The house gets lonely sometimes; Matthew has little reason to visit since she's at the big house almost every night for dinner and drinks, and while her girls are important to her, they are not her friends. They are her charges, her students, her projects, and Isobel has realized lately that she has few actual friends. This woman could be a friend, she thinks, if only she can break down the horrifying barrier between them built by the stupidity of social class and status ranking.

Elsie looks at her, startled.  _Yes_. It's an answer she puts firmly out of her mind, no idea why it almost sprang from her lips. Mrs. Crawley has taken leave of her senses; what on earth is she thinking to ask her to share a meal with her? Servants and employers don't eat together, not ever, not even on the most casual of picnic or sporting days. It's not done. And why would she want to? She has other people to share meals with, other ladies and young ladies, why would she want to eat breakfast with the housekeeper? She doesn't quite know how to turn down the invitation, however, she doesn't know how to refuse without sounding impertinent or rude. ( _Though she wants to stay, she wants to stay and sit with this woman, this lovely widow in her soft flowing gown and her softly pinned hair and her exquisite skin, though she doesn't know why, doesn't understand exactly, does understand, does understand precisely, will not admit it, has worked at not admitting these types of feelings for many, many years_.)

"Yes, thank you, ma'am." Isobel is surprised; she had expected Elsie to refuse, to make her customary cold withdrawal into her own mind, to shutter those eyes ( _they're beautiful, a shifting blue-grey that makes her think of tidal pools, there are small worlds contained in those eyes_ ) against her. Whatever her reason for staying, she's glad she is and has the cook lay another place, fill another plate. Isobel drinks champagne with breakfast, a habit she picked up in France, and she goes in search of another glass as Elsie shrugs out of her coat, stows her handbag away with it, unpins her hat. She follows the other woman into the neatly laid little dining room and takes her chair, looks at Isobel questioningly as she fills a champagne flute with the beautiful amber liquid.

"Is there a celebration, Mrs. Crawley?" Elsie has never known anyone to drink champagne at breakfast, not even after New Year's. It seems decadent, sybaritic, and in contrast to Isobel's almost manic insistence to work, to produce, to do something. To Elsie, it speaks of long mornings in bed, tousled hair, felinesque daytime siestas. Not of social justice, nursing, reformation of prostitutes. She struggles to bring the two sides of this woman together ( _she also struggles to ignore how the dark rich claret of Isobel's gown makes her skin glow from within, as if she's burning with some warmth that is never extinguished, struggles to not see the way the heavy knot of her chignon rests against the tender nape of neck, these are not things she should notice_ ). She accepts the glass of drink, sips from it cautiously. Elsie has always loved champagne but gets it rarely; New Year's, her Ladyship's birthday. And here she is having it with eggs and mushrooms and croissants. Croissants, not toast.

"Every day is a celebration, Mrs. Hughes. At least it should be. The French got that part right if nothing else." Isobel smiles, gestures prettily with her glass, and takes a deep, satisfying draw. It's the best thing she ever picked up during her holidays south ( _second best, she thinks, oh second best, yes_ ,  _she learned other things in that beautiful, erotic country, learned so many things there on the Left Bank_ ) and she plans to continue it until the day she dies. She glances at Elsie who is attending her breakfast neatly with pristine table manners and she realizes she is pretty, this woman, this housekeeper, this servant; she is lovely, quite beautiful, in fact, with her plain, naked face adorned by nothing but those startling eyes, the high color of the unpowdered skin, the soft pink of the mouth ( _as if she has been biting flower petals, Isobel thought, and smiled at the image_ ).

They eat lightly and talk easily, both women surprised by that. After a few false starts and pretentious gestures, they fall into a comfortable pattern of ask-and-answer. Each woman in turn realises with gratitude that she has found a kindred spirit in talk, in thought; answers are accepted and motives are not questioned. If something is questioned, it's tucked away for later to think over, to ponder. Lines are easily read between.

"Do you like working at Downton? Is it what you always wanted?"

"I like it well enough, and it's what I wanted, yes. It's a lovely house."  _(One can't have everything she wants.)_

"Do you like living here? Would you rather not be with Mr. Crawley up at the big house?"

"No, heavens, I'd go mad living up there under all of them. Can you imagine me at breakfast? Me and the old lady? I see Matthew every day at dinner, it's a good arrangement for me. I need my own space." _(I get lonely, yes, but not for them.)_

"Do you miss Scotland? It's a beautiful place, and yet you never seem to go back -- rainy, but beautiful."

"I don't, not particularly. Well, I suppose some things. I miss the water, mostly, I miss the lochs and the shore and the way storms would come in and blow everything right again. Not just this dampness." ( _I do not miss it, I do not, but I miss the storms_.)

The talk goes on, and on, and they drink another glass of champagne, and they sit with hands folded beneath their chins, talking, learning, beginning to know one another.

 _It is,_ Isobel thinks _, a beginning._

Everything has changed somehow and here they are. There had been something about a dressing gown, something about an extra one someone had given her, Elsie could have it if she liked, Isobel had too many and they looked to be about the same size and they went to her bedroom to look at it, to see, just to see if it would fit and now here they are and -

_I've never, I don't know how._

_It's all right, I have, I do._

Pretty lips are exploring each other and hair is tumbling down from restraining pins and there are two dresses and two slips and almost two everything ( _only one corset, Isobel doesn't wear them, refuses to wear one_ ) puddled together on the floor and everything is soft skin on soft skin and another woman's hands on another woman's body and Elsie has never and Isobel most certainly has and both of them think of flowers for some reason, both of them think of petals falling and blooms swelling until it becomes faster, more urgent. They are kissing with long, hungry kisses now, tracing the curves of violin shaped bodies, exploring breast and thigh and belly with seeking, tender fingers. Isobel has and Elsie hasn't but now she is the more forceful one, even in her inexperience, she is pushing against Isobel, desperately trying for more, for more of this, for more of this utter beauty, for more of this rightness ( _finally after so many years of wrongness, after turning away nice men, after trying so hard to fall in love with her best friend, after telling herself over and over that she could marry him, they could stay on at Downton forever and she'd be happy, these dreams of women would stop happening if she did that_ ), but she's not quite sure exactly what to do, not sure exactly what it is she wants so she pleads with Isobel, cups her face in shaking hands, kisses her over and over.

_Please, I don't know how, please, I don't know._

They are nothing but bare skin now, bare skin and like one of the paintings his Lordship keeps in his private study, the paintings Elsie has stared at with a pounding heart and flushed cheeks when she tidies that room; she generally does it herself, doesn't want the girls mucking about with important papers and the money that is casually thrown around in there. They are like one of those paintings, yes, two women entwined on this wide bed, undulating in all of these soft sheets and blankets, long spills of hair over their shoulders, but in those paintings the women are sleeping and Isobel is most certainly not sleeping as she turns Elsie now, guides her onto her back, kisses her breasts with a delicate mouth, suckles lightly at the nipples, kisses the hot undercurve. She's trying to help, to give back, and she touches every part of Isobel that she can reach with gentle hands, with grateful fingertips. She's on her back beneath this woman ( _not a lady no, not a lady and Elsie is so grateful for that she almost cries, she could never do this with a lady, it would be ugly and cheap and whorish, it would be serving_ ) and somewhere in her mind she knows it has been quite a length of time that she has been away from the big house but that's a thought for later, not one for now, no, because the warm honeyed pleasure that is spreading over her body demands she pay attention.

Isobel lingers over her for a moment before continuing her movements, traces Elsie's face with her fingers. Her bone structure is stunning, sharp, like she was drawn in the boldest of pencil lines but then filled in with watercolours. She's both stone and silk, this lovely woman, and though Isobel has made love with women before, more than a couple, she's never quite reached this fever pitch, this desire for more, this desire to have, to hold, to possess. Elsie hasn't and while her innocence makes Isobel smile, makes her glad to introduce her to this loving, it's the opposite that drives her want, her need, it's those eyes that contain multitudes, that hold the secrets of ages. She wants to see those eyes when she lets go, when she truly feels, when she reaches her climax with another woman for the first time, she wants to see those worlds open up and those secrets unlock and those multitudes pour out. She does. Isobel slips a hand between Elsie's legs and parts them gently, slides her thigh between them, turns their bodies slightly, positions their hips so she is kneeling over her, moves until they just barely touch there, until soft labia are just barely brushing and she watches those eyes go wide and the lips part and the color heighten in the high cheekbones as she understands what they are going to do.

_Oh, please, please, yes, oh, I never -- oh, please._

Elsie clutches at the other woman's thighs, at her hips as she begins to rock and it's all she can do to keep from screaming with relief, all she can do to not sob with gratitude that this is happening, finally, finally after all these lonely years, after only daring to want another woman from afar ( _very afar_ ), this is happening and Isobel is rocking her body steadily now, pushing them together, pulling Elsie against her tightly and wet flesh is sliding deliciously against wet flesh and the friction is unbearable, ungodly, she can't take anymore, she will die if it stops, she doesn't know what to do, she knows exactly what to do. Her hands bear down, use Isobel's body for leverage, pushes up, pushes back, and they find a rhythm that soon has them both gasping with soft little moans, little pleas to one another ( _darling, please, sweetheart, oh god, oh please, I never, I --_ ) and hands are kneading lightly at breasts and nails are biting lightly against skin and eyes are sliding closed and opening again to see the other.

Isobel pulls back, adjusts herself minutely, she doesn't want her climax until she has seen it, until she has seen those sea-colored eyes when it happens for her, so she pushes and rocks with more purpose, more determination and it's happening, she can feel it happening, she can feel the swelling and the rush of moisture and the muscles of the pretty body pulling taut and she leans, looks into her and she gasps at what she sees, she moves closer and that movement is fatal for her as the combination of the friction on her clitoris and the beautiful storm raging in those eyes work in tandem to send her over, and they go together, they ride that storm in all of its crashing wildness and they cling to one another, bodies entwined, silken arms around silken arms, smooth legs tangled with smooth legs, and Isobel feels a part of her heart lost to this mermaid, this water witch, and all Elsie can feel is, now, here, finally, set free.


	2. Laguna

Elsie accepts the glass of champagne with a slightly trembling hand. She is furious with him, angrier than she has been in a long time, and so she left, went out for a walk, went out for air, needed to not look at him for a while. He is her best friend in the world, true enough, but he is thoughtless, careless with his words, even unkind sometimes. Their relationship is sometimes difficult but she tries to show him her love and affection, to make sure he knows she will never abandon him, and he slaps at her when she least expects it. Tonight she tried to do just that, to show appreciation for him ( _appreciation that he almost never gets from anyone_ ), to compliment him on how sweet he is to Sybil's child, and he mocked her. Actually smirked and mocked her, turned away, shrugged her off. That hurt, hurt more than it should she supposes, but sometimes their friendship seems horribly one-sided and she gets tired of it.

And so now she is here again, here in this little dollhouse with this beautiful doll of a woman ( _no, she is perfectly coiffed and exquisitely dressed and everything lovely, but not a doll, Elsie thinks, she is too strong for that_ ) drinking champagne and telling her woes and she doesn't even remember walking in this direction. Doesn't even remember having any intent on coming here again. Elsie has not been back since the last time, since that afternoon in ( _something she will not name, something she cannot accept_ ) Isobel's bedroom, in her bed, in her tangled lavender sheets. She only knows that she saw Isobel in her garden, running her fingers through the chrysanthemums, gathering blooms for the house, and she had been drawn to go to her, to return her wave from across the lawn, to follow her into the house and curl into the corner of her sofa. Before she knew it, all of her anger and frustration with Carson was spilling out.

"I'm so tired of him, Mrs. Crawley; I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be telling you about silly spats but he makes me so tired sometimes. It's so wearying to never know how to approach someone, if he's going to be in a temper or not, if he's going to bite the head off me or not. It's  _tiresome_." She sips her champagne, closes her eyes briefly in pleasure. Elsie understands why Isobel feels the right to open a bottle every morning. Why not? Why bloody shouldn't every day be celebrated? Elsie certainly would if she had Isobel's circumstances. Her cheeks flush crimson as shadowy, vague images fill her mind, blossom in her brain like slowly unfolding flowers, images of the last time she drank champagne in this house, the last time she had talked intimately with Isobel, who is looking at her searchingly, a small sharp line dividing her smooth forehead. Elsie forces a smile, raises her brows in question.

"Mrs. Hughes, are you really still calling me Mrs. Crawley? Honestly, I really should be Isobel to you now, particularly after --"

" -- yes, I am, that's what I'm meant to call you, that's your name, for heaven's sake." Elsie is stuttering, stumbling, desperate to cut her off, to keep her from saying it, to keep her from mentioning ( _demanding fingers, hot kisses, soft pink skin sliding together_ ) that time, that hour spent in a place she cannot revisit. "I -- it was very kind of you to have me at ( _your bed, your arms, your mouth_ ) your table but we mustn't forget how to act properly." She feels the hot blush covering her face now, burning, and she stares intently into her glass.

Isobel watches her closely, carefully, trying to understand exactly why the other woman is here, what exactly she wants from her. She had tried to see Elsie again after that lovely afternoon together, had tried to speak to her several times at the big house, but she always found a reason to dart away to the servant's quarters, a swiftly murmured excuse to slide into the shadows of another room. Isobel had toyed with the idea of sending her a letter, a note, but she suspected rightly that it would have went unanswered, ignored. She's not hurt or offended, she had expected this might happened ( _had hoped against hope that it wouldn't_ ) and she now needs to find a way to put this right. She can't have her hiding away in shame or fear about what Isobel started, about what she led her into. And she did lead her, she admits, she encouraged her, guided her. Would encourage her again and again if she could deal with it, but she's not sure now that Elsie can. Being with a woman for the first time had been a joyous, freeing thing for Isobel, but she didn't live under the yoke of the service system, didn't have a vitally important job that her livelihood depended on. She could afford to be free. Elsie, perhaps, has decided she cannot. She smiles and answers softly.

"No, Mrs. Hughes, I suppose we can't forget that. But -- don't you ever get tired of acting properly? Don't you ever just want to -- let it all go? Even for just a while?" Isobel turns in her armchair, pulls her knees up, tucks her bare feet beneath her. She studies her for a long moment, takes in the pink cheeks, the amazing eyes with their frame of dark lashes. There's a deep pang of regret in her chest when she thinks their time together may have only been that one time, a wistful wish that it could have gone on longer, could have been better for her, sweeter, less rushed. She absently rubs at the soft velvet of her skirt.

Elsie stares fixedly into the slow bubbling swirl of the champagne. She doesn't know what to say, how to answer. If she says yes, it will seem like an invitation for - for something else. If she says no, it will be a lie ( _she will know it is a lie, she has seen Elsie let go, lay it down, fall screaming into a sweet void of caring_ ). There is no answer that she can find that won't lead to trouble, so she gropes for the arm of the sofa, uncrosses her ankles. She needs to leave, needs to get away from all of this soft light and soft perfume and --

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Crawley; I've kept you long enough. I never should have intruded. I'll go now." She puts her glass down harder than she intended, rushes for the door. Before she can turn the latch and go out, however, there is a firm hand on her upper arm, slender fingers (that she knows so well, that are etched on her body like the age lines she carries) wrapped around it and Isobel is pressing her gently back, turning her.

"No, not like this, don't go yet. We should talk, we should --"

Elsie silences her then, leans forward and presses her lips hard against the other woman's mouth, kisses her desperately, fearfully. She doesn't mean to, she means to do exactly the opposite, but she's too close now and she smells too sweet and the nights are so long at Downton, the years have been so long to be so untouched, so wrapped up in yards of black muslin and white cambric. Her hands play roughly against Isobel's shoulders, against that fine dark velvet, rubbing and grabbing and trying to pull her close, closer, and Isobel is pushing her away, taking her wrists in her well-manicured hands, stopping the kiss to whisper against her cheek.

"Not here, darling."

Isobel knows she shouldn't, not with her in this agitated state, but she is compelled as Elsie pulls her down the hall, yanking her hand hard, rushing. It doesn't go amiss that she has memorized the layout of Isobel's house, knows exactly where her bedroom is, remembers just which door to open. It's clear that Elsie has thought of their lovemaking again and again, replayed it over and over in her mind, and so that is surely a good sign, she thinks, surely a sign that she knows what she's doing, knows what she wants.  _Still_ , Isobel thinks.  _Still_. They are in the bedroom and Elsie is sliding the lock with clumsy, shaking fingers; she watches her fumble with it until it clicks into place. As she looks at her, takes in all of her heady excitement, her urgent movements, she realizes something. A little smile lifts her mouth.

"I don't even  _know_ your name."

Elsie is kissing her again, kissing her as hard as she can, biting at her mouth, and Elsie has stopped thinking about the rest of it. The house, Carson's hurtful remark, her job, the family, the everything. She has stopped thinking about anything other than this right now, this that she doesn't want to talk about, that she doesn't want to spoil with words because if they talk about it they have to stop doing it ( _surely, surely, it is shameful, surely, but all Elsie can feel is shame at the absence of shame because all of it floats away when she kisses her, all of it dissipates like steam rising from water and everything is just tidal, everything is just storm_ ). She pulls back just enough to speak, to breathe hard against the drugging sweet mouth. "Elsie. Just Elsie."  _That's all we need_ , she thinks,  _that's all that is important right now_  and she is unhooking Isobel's dress swiftly, expertly, shoving it off of the light golden shoulders and she takes the time to wonder why she is always this color, why she always looks faintly sun-kissed when the rest of them are so pale. She bends her neck slowly, reverently, begins to press her lips along the beautifully curved neck, the tender shoulder, tastes the skin there; it is overwhelming, salt and sun and flowers all bursting into life and she sucks then, licks, laves, relishing the high-pitched little sound Isobel makes, the way her hands curve around her head, holding her there, demanding more.

Isobel begins pulling the pins from Elsie's hair with sureness, wanting it free, wanting to see the strands mingle with her own. She can feel her doing the same and Isobel lifts her lashes, looks over Elsie's shoulder into the mirror behind them and her heart is full at the sight, at the beautiful sight of two women pressed together, arms wound around each other's shoulders, hands in each other's hair, ringlets and waves and locks falling in unison, a light then a dark, a brown and a blonde. Their hairpins are dropped into the shell on the dresser, mixing together, silver and steel, and Elsie is pushing Isobel's dress down her body, over her hips, letting her hands course over the curve of breast and waist. Crouching there at her feet, helping her step out of the dress, Elsie looks up and her voice is soft but strangely bitter.

"Why don't you wear a corset?"

Isobel is startled by the question, finds it odd, out of place ( _finds it so lovely how the words roll and fall on that accented tongue_ ). "Because they're painful - and because I find it ridiculous that we're meant to bind our bodies into unnatural shapes."

Elsie stands then, her own dress discarded, and begins unhooking her corset. She looks steadily at Isobel, the shifting blue eyes unreadable, covered in mist.

"You just do whatever you please, don't you?"

She pulls off her clothing, treads it underfoot, and begins divesting Isobel of her underskirt, her shift, kneels to pull her stockings from her thighs, her calves. She kisses and bites at the soft inner thighs, drags her lips over all of that soft peach gold skin and Elsie feels a moment of hesitation, of uncertainties, but like everything else she doesn't want to feel right now it floats and she arches up, presses her mouth to the delicate labia and is rewarded with a sharp, keening inhalation of breath and a pretty hand tangling in her hair, pulling, jerking and the pain of that is exquisite, sweet, stinging. A moan rises out of her chest, deep, guttural and she runs her hands up, grips the swell of the hip, pushes her mouth harder, kissing, rubbing, sliding.

Isobel leans against the vanity and grips its edge with her free hand, with the hand that isn't yanking and wrapping in that lush brown hair. She doesn't mean to pull but when Elsie's mouth pushes just there,  _just right there_ , her entire body goes taut, and here Elsie is the inexperienced one. The innocent, the recently taken virgin, the cold maid that she had taken in her bed here is now aggressive, assertive, forceful, resisting any efforts Isobel makes to draw her up from her knees. She's trying to control herself, to urge Elsie to the bed so she can lay her down, kiss her, touch her gently, help soothe some of the anxiety she was steeped in but she's having none of it; she's wrapping her arms around Isobel's hips and now ( _oh god, now, now she has slipped her beautiful pink tongue between the labia, tasting the moisture there, and Isobel almost screams with the shock and the pleasure as her mouth passes over her clitoris and Elsie is inexperienced, yes, a little insecure, but a quick hand at everything, always, and hasn't she touched herself here, at just this point, hasn't she known this rhythm, this pattern, two women together is --_ ) all Isobel can do is pull the beautiful hair and try to support herself against the table and she gives up any pretense finally and reaches down with her other hand and begins to push Elsie's mouth against her harder, begins to rock her pelvis as she uses the lovely full lips and sensitive tongue precisely where she needs them, wants them, holds Elsie's face between her hands and strokes her cheeks with her thumbs as she finally answers the question that was put to her, answers between gasps and small moans and sharp cries.

"Yes, yes, I do what I please -- it serves me well."

Elsie pulls back, looks up at her, meets her gaze, holds her with those dangerous mermaid eyes. ( _Her lips are glistening and the sweet sharp taste is all through her mouth, through her body, through her mind, and she didn't come here for this, she didn't, but she knows really, truly, she did and she will again and she will come here because this is the only honest thing she has had in her life that she didn't have to break her back for and because two women together is --_ )

"Good."

Her head bows again as she returns to her worshipful posture.

They both share a thought then as Isobel's head drops back and she cries out, as Elsie feels the beautiful pain of her hair being pulled between hands that she knows she will come to love, to crave, to be hopelessly addicted to if this goes on, if this continues. They share a thought of lightning, of thunder, of the sea breaking over rocks, of tidal waves that wash everything clean and leave the beach silent and pure, of gardens wrecked from their manicured precision back to the twisted wild sprawl that nature demands.

_Two women together is a storm._


End file.
